Meet Real Women

Susan

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Susan is a lucky woman. She survived sudden cardiac arrest. She is one of the only 5 percent who do.

Last September, her heart stopped beating for 10 to 12 minutes, before the paramedics brought her back. By the time she arrived at Baptist Hospital, there was a good chance she might not make it. “The doctor told me I was the sickest person in the hospital, probably the sickest person in Nashville.”

But today well on her way to recovery, Susan is home with her husband, Freddie, and four-year-old daughter.

Susan’s heart attack and subsequent cardiac arrest came out of the blue. At age 36, she was a happily married mother and career woman, working in retirement planning and commuting from Franklin, a Nashville suburb. She wasn’t overweight, didn’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol and had no heart problems in her family history.

“I had pretty severe shoulder pain the week before. I had been on a business trip. I really just thought my shoulder was hurting from carrying my computer bag around, slinging luggage and traveling. Like a lot of women I just ignored it, I thought it would get better.”

But it didn’t.

She doesn’t remember much else from that week. She came home on a Thursday night, exhausted from a 10 to 12 hour workday, and fell into bed. The next morning around 6:30 a.m. – September 26, 2008 – her husband heard a heavy thud coming from the bathroom. He ran in to find her lifeless body crumpled on the floor. She was in cardiac arrest. When the Williamson Medical Center paramedics arrived, Susan had to have her heart shocked five times before they could even get her to the ambulance. As they were leaving, Freddie kept asking, “Do we have a pulse? Do we have a pulse?”

“They said, ‘We think so.’”

Susan’s heart had to be shocked nine more times during the four-mile ambulance ride to the Saint Thomas Chest Pain Center at Williamson Medical Center. There, Dr. Jerry Franklin inserted a stent in her blocked artery. Then they rushed her to Baptist Hospital. “I think I was hooked up to every machine they had,” Susan said.

Susan was at Baptist Hospital for 31 days and it was more than two weeks before she could breathe on her own. “I don’t remember anything until they removed the tubes. People keep telling me these stories. In the first couple of days, the doctors even talked about a partial heart transplant. Instead, I left the hospital with a pacemaker/defibrillator implant.”


Why did this happen? “That was the big mystery,” answered Susan. “All the normal signs were missing. They ran every possible test on me. Turns out I have a blood clot disorder. They also discovered I have Addison’s Disease and a hypo-thyroid. No wonder I felt tired all the time. I just thought every working mother was tired – and you don’t complain. I waited way too long.”

Susan paused for a moment then chuckled, “I guess a cardiac arrest is one way to find out you have all these other things going on.”

Some people would call Susan lucky but she gives God the credit. She could have had her heart attack while she was traveling and the hotel maid wouldn’t have found her until noon. Her husband, Freddie, had been traveling too, and he almost didn’t come home that night. He missed his first flight and would have missed his second if the airline hadn’t paged him. Then he wouldn’t have been there to hear her fall and she wouldn’t have survived. The ambulance was nearby so it arrived within three minutes. Her three-year-old daughter was at her grandmothers and did not witness the trauma. And of course, when Susan got to the hospital, the Saint Thomas Heart at Williamson Medical Center cardiac specialists took care of her.

Susan says her experience has reinforced her faith. “I was on more than a 100 prayer lists across the country. It was unbelievable. I think I’m still here for a reason – if I can just figure out what it is. Why do I have this second chance? Hopefully, it’s to educate women about heart disease.”

Six months have passed and Susan continues to recover. She’s not back at work but she’s talking about it. She exercises five times a week and eats a heart-healthy diet. “Before this happened, I would eat whatever the crave was for that day. Now, I know there’s a better way.”

Susan has two pieces of womanly advice. The first? “Listen to your body when it is telling you that something’s wrong. Go to the doctor. If they don’t listen, go to the next doctor. You can’t ignore your symptoms. So many people depend on you – as a mother, wife, co-worker or daughter.”

The second? “Don’t postpone joy because nothing’s promised. You never know if it’s your last day. I know it wasn’t my time. I’m not in charge of that anyway. People came into my life and saved my life – from the paramedics and staff at Williamson Medical Center to cardiologist Dr. Stacy Davis and the staff at Baptist Hospital. I’m just so grateful they didn’t give up on me.”

“I wake up every morning,” Susan mused. “‘Oh, it’s raining. Oh the sun’s shining. Oh….whatever! And I love it!”

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